Review of American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Raleigh in Domestic First

Report No: 2020-808

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to this new US domestic First Class mileage run series. As American Airlines does have really good Domestic First Class fares which allows me to get status points for a really good value, so I decided to do mileage runs. This series is my first mileage run series and there would be more US domestic mileage run series coming through this year and next year.

The second flight of this mileage run would be a 27-minute flight from Charlotte Douglas Airport to Raleigh Durham Airport. As I only had a 17 minute connection time, I wasn't able to visit the American Airlines Admirals Club in Charlotte but I could tell you that I'll be flying from Charlotte with AA a minimum of 6 times ( unless plans change ) within the next 30 days so I hope to report the CLT club over there.

Here is the routing for this mileage run;

Enter text here…

Loads for this flight

Domestic First: %75 ( 6/8 seats occupied )
Main Cabin: %30-35 

CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS AIRPORT - CLT

After I deboarded my previous flight, I ran all the way to gate D5 and made my original flight to Raleigh-Durham. At the gate, the gate agent told me that they were waiting for me, however, they thought that I would not make it, although I was at the gate 12 minutes before scheduled departure time. With a really complicated itinerary, I am not able to imagine, how would I get the exact Qpoints within the same day without overnighting at another destination.

However, my original seat 2A was given to someone else and I was assigned seat 1A instead.
Here is a shot of N738US that would take me to Raleigh Durham 

AA 1517 CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS AIRPORT TO RALEIGH DURHAM AIRPORT

This flight has significant importance for me as this was the shortest route on a commercial flight that I have ever took ( 130 miles ), the second is ZRH-GVA ( 143 miles ) which I had the chance to fly with a Swiss Avro RJ100 and the third is VNO-RIX ( 166 miles ) with Air Baltic which I took last year. 

Also the connection to this flight was the tightest ever connection that I made: 17 minutes

Here is my seat for this 27 minute flight.

The legroom was OK in the first row

Our neighbor was this American Airlines A321

Before the doors were shut, I have asked the cabin crew a cup of water as I ran for 4-5 minutes within the terminal to make this flight and I was thirsty. The crew gave me the whole bottle.

Here is the seat pocket content

The seat had a power outlet but not a USB port

While I was exploring the seat, we have started pushing back.

An American Eagle Embraer

More regional jets parked at Terminal E

Ancient aircraft parked near the runway

And we had took off on time for our flight to Raleigh-Durham.

A view of Charlotte downtown while gaining altitude

And we were already in the air.

Mobile IFE was available throughout the flight, with Movies and TV shows

Wi-Fi was also available on today's flight.
As I've used the T-Mobile free Wi-Fi option on the previous flight, on this flight I only had free texting for the flight. If I needed internet, I was offered to purchase Wi-Fi.

During today's flight, no service was made, and as nobody had hit the call button throughout this flight, the cabin crew only appeared when collecting trash.

Beautiful landscape while approaching RDU

Some construction or mining going on near the airport

And we had landed to RDU ahead of schedule.

The rental car center

After a taxi for 5 minutes, we had arrived at gate C15.

Our neighbor was this American Boeing 737-800 which operated the earlier CLT-RDU flight, however, due to technical issues, that bird was still there and its next flight was delayed.

RALEIGH DURHAM AIRPORT - RDU

After saying thank you to the crew, I have left the aircraft and took this photo of our bird.

Now, it was time to explore RDU until my next flight which would been departing about 1h50mins later than our arrival.

The journey would continue in the next report.
Thanks for reading and hope to see you in another report.